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The Confederate Manifesto

Source : Cornerstone Speech, 1861, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens

“The prevailing ideas entertained by most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away.

A fair and accurate assessment. It is true of Racism today - an evil we know not well how to deal with, but which we trust will pass away.

The events of the 40s show that such passing may have to be assisted by means up to and including the use of nuclear weapons on organised Racists. Or conventional weapons in suitably horrific quantities. Hamburg. Dresden. Rostock. Tokyo.

Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.

This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

The first, but alas, not the last. Hence Auschwitz. Hence Hamburg, Dresden, Rostock, Tokyo and other cities not completely razed by Firestorm, just gutted.

Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind — from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just — but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. “

Bottom line: the Might Makes Right Racists lost. Twice. Once at Appomatox Courthouse, once at Luneburg Heath. Don't punch Nazis, eradicate them. Hopefully by education rather than incendiaries.

"Gender Reassignment and case of "John /Joan" - Dr. Milton Diamond with...

I had some very interesting discussions with Prof Diamond when I visited him in Hawaii some 15 years ago.

Women’s Sport.

 

To my knowledge, none of those pictured are Intersex. Certainly none are Trans. Humans vary.

A short history of Sex Chromosomes

In 1890, the X and Y chromosomes were discovered. It was found that the men who were tested had 46 chromosomes, including an X and a Y, while women who were tested also had 46 chromosomes, including 2 X chromosomes. 

So obviously the conclusion was that the Y chromosome defined masculinity. A reasonable conclusion. 

 Fast forward 50 years... and it was found that some men had 47 chromosomes, including 2 X's and a Y, while some women had 45, including only one X. Still no problem with the "Y chromosome defines masculinity" idea.

 Then... it was found that fully 1 in 300 men weren't 46,XY. Some women were. 

 Oops. 

 After DNA was discovered in the 50s, it was found that the SrY gene, usually found on the Y chromosome, sometimes was missing. And sometimes had been translocated to another chromosome, hence 46,XX men and 46,XY women. So SrY defined masculinity. Whew!

Then.. it was found out that some men didn’t have an SrY chromosome, not anywhere. Some women did. Other genes were involved sometimes.

Oops again.

. Worse, other factors, such as Androgen Insensitivity made 46,XY people female, and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia masculinised 46,XX people. 

Then in the 70s, other syndromes, such as 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency were identified, which caused babies to look like one sex at birth, then the other at ppuberty.Even worse, in some places 1 in 50 infants had this natural sex change, it was not rare there. 

 Science 1974 Dec 27; 186 (4170): 1213-5

 In an isolated village of the southwestern Dominican Republic, 2% of the live births were in the 1970's, guevedoces....These children appeared to be girls at birth, but at puberty these 'girls' sprout muscles, testes, and a penis. For the rest of their lives they are men in nearly all respects.

 In the 90s, it was found that hormonal hiccups in the womb caused some parts of the body to develop as one sex, othersbas the other, regardless of genetics.

Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041 

 The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions

 It's a matter of timing during foetal development.

 Sometimes a boy is born looking like a girl, sometimes a girl is born looking like a boy, regardless of chromosomes. 

This is complex stuff. We don't teach the Theory of General Relativity in grade school, Newtonian physics, or at most Special Relativity (far simpler than General) is enough. Similary, "XX is female, XY is male" is good enough unless you do medicine or biology in college.

 It's only really relevant when talking about Trans or Intersex people, just as Relativistic effects only become relevant in the domain of the very big, very small, or very very fast, close to 186,000 miles a second.

 People do *not* need psychiatric help when they think that things get heavier, more massive, as they go faster... while lengths contract. People do *not* need help when they think their sex is something different from their genetics.

 Intersex people exist. Trans people exist. They are unusual, so trying to apply the usual approximations is as silly as trying to apply Newtonian physics to things moving close to or at light speed. Legislating such things is as insane as legally ruling that Pi=3... as has been done in the past.

Liberal Mom Forces Son to be Transgender? - The Younger Case

Johnson & Johnson Blood Clots

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Masks - from the Journal of Hospital Infection

 From

Dismantling myths on the airborne transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)

Tang et al, Journal of Hospital Infection, Jan 2021 pre print

Several laboratory studies have already shown that surgical and home-made masks are somewhat (but incompletely) effective in both limiting exhaled particles, and in protecting wearers from inhaling particles from others. Surgical masks can contain, and therefore reduce, the dissemination of viruses shed by an infected wearer by up to 3-4-fold (i.e. ∼67-75%), and even 100% in the case of seasonal coronaviruses.^, When an infectious person wears a mask or face covering, the size of the exhaled plume is also reduced and this also helps to reduce the risk of exposure to those nearby.

 

Surgical masks also protect the wearer, by reducing the exposure to incoming droplets and aerosols from infected individuals by an average of 6-fold (range 1.1 to 55-fold).^, The filtration capacity of surgical masks in the micron size range is often considerable, although it varies between brands. We know that the filtration capacity of N95/FFP2 respirators is better if they have been appropriately fit-tested, to avoid leakage of aerosols around the side of the respirator into the breathing zone.

 

Even home-made cloth masks (made from tea cloths or cotton t-shirts) can reduce the exposure from incoming particles by up to 2-4-fold (i.e. ∼50-75%).

 

This mainly depends on how the mask is made, what materials it is made from, the number of layers, and the characteristics of respiratory secretions to which it is exposed. Based on the evidence supporting a role for airborne transmission of COVID-19, the use of N95/FFP2/FFP3 respirators by frontline healthcare workers should be recommended. For those that cannot tolerate wearing these masks for long periods, the less restrictive surgical masks still offer some protection, but it needs to be acknowledged that these won’t be quite so effective

 

 

Meet Elizabeth from Knoxville Tennessee who stormed the Capitol.

Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.

Corollary: it's only a Revolution if you win. Otherwise it's Treason. Really. Not joking.

Worse, in the US, if someone was killed during the course of a crime, everyone involved in the commission of that crime is guilty of homicide. Even lookouts or getaway drivers who had no direct connection with the death. As icing on the cake, if the person who died was a law enforcement officer, all those involved are deemed "cop killers" and hunted without mercy. One Capitol policeman died from head injuries after one of the mob bashed him with a fire extinguisher.

This naive idiot is about to find out that in real life, actions have consequences. Legal ones.

 The crime of Treason in the US is very, very rarely charged. The bar is set very high. However, the Death Penalty is on the table if found guilty. I hope this child in a woman's body gets good legal representation, and that the prosecutor is not out for blood. Literally. If she's really unlucky, she'll  be tried as if she were Black.

Tragedy in the Capitol

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State of Play : Covid-19

As this pandemic has progressed, so has its medical management.  Although largely drowned out by more sensational media ‘noise of numbers’, one thing is clear – Covid-19 treatment is getting much better.  Those infected since June are now far more likely to survive than those unluckily infected before June.  This is why.

ICU and infectious disease doctors have been on a steep ‘learning curve’ but they now know far more about Covid-19 than they did in the early days of the pandemic.  As a result, they are now treating their patients more effectively.

Although tragic for families who lost those they loved in the early months and who now think ‘if only ... ...’, those two words reflect the bittersweet reality of all medical learning curves: the more we learn, the better the outcomes.

There are five important things that we know now but didn’t know at the start.

1. Covid-19 was initially thought to kill by pneumonia ... and infection of the lungs.  As a result, ventilators seemed the best way to treat sick patients who couldn’t breathe.  We will all remember the scramble for [and the bitter debate over] ventilators in the US and Europe.

But importantly, it has become clear that the virus does not cause its worst damage through infective pneumonia, but rather by the formation of tiny blood clots inside blood vessels – primarily in the lungs.  These, in turn, cause the blood oxygen level to fall, rapidly leading to a condition known as ‘hypoxia’.  But the lungs are not the only target – small clots also form in other organs – like the kidneys.  These micro-clots, and not infection, are the key feature of Covid-19.

Simply providing oxygen by a ventilator is not the answer.  Rather, it is these micro-clots that need to be prevented and/or dissolved.  Blood-thinning drugs [like aspirin and heparin] that prevent clotting are now the core of Covid-19 treatment – we have learned that drugs that only treat infection do not work.

2. Early in the pandemic, patients died incredibly rapidly – often before they could reach hospital.  This sudden, frightening, and catastrophic pattern of death occurred when the blood oxygen level began to drop precipitously.  But why?

It seems that Covid-19 causes a rather strange type of hypoxia – oddly dubbed ‘happy hypoxia’.  In Covid-19, the blood oxygen level can fall gradually, without any symptoms, without the patient being ‘aware’ – at least not until a critical, near fatal level has been reached.  Normally we become breathless if our blood oxygen content [saturation] falls below about 90%.  But in Covid-19 patients, oxygen saturation can fall slowly, imperceptibly, to as low as 70% before the patient suddenly gets very sick, and collapses.  This is not unlike the way carbon monoxide kills ‘by stealth’, and why carbon monoxide monitors are now recommended if gas burners or open fireplaces are used at home.

Why breathlessness is not triggered in Covid-19 patients until very low oxygen levels are reached is not fully understood, but it does explain why so many very sick patients presented so very late in those earlier months.

Once ‘happy hypoxia’ was recognised, early intervention became possible.  Many countries now use a simple, cheap, pulse oximeter [those little black clamps they place on a fingertip before an anaesthetic] to home-monitor oxygen saturation in Covid-19 patients.  This allows patients to stay safely at home and only be transferred to hospital only if the blood oxygen saturation drops below 90%.  This simple management step is one key reason why survival is improving.

3. Early on, no drugs were able to ‘fight’ the coronavirus and most patients became severely ill.  Hypoxia could be countered with a ventilator, but this was a rear-guard action and was before we knew of the benefits of treating blood clots.

During those first few desperate global months, doctors began to learn!  Autopsies revealed the underlying clotting problem and led to the use of anti-clotting drugs.  Furthermore, two important anti-viral medicines, remdesivir and favipiravir, were found to be effective against Covid-19.  If used early and selectively in patients where oxygen levels had fallen below 90%, these drugs could prevent many patients from becoming severely unwell.  But, as both are scarce and expensive, they are held in reserve for those in greatest need.

4. Many Covid-19 patients do not die from the virus alone but are damaged by an overly-exuberant response from their own immune system – ‘cytokine storm’.  This exaggerated response can do as much (or more) damage than the virus itself.

Doctors did not know how to prevent this immune response until, in June, an Oxford team reported their success with dexamethasone – a cheap, available, long-used steroid.  This has allowed ‘cytokine storm’ to be blunted in most patients.

5. ICU patients on respirator support have traditionally been nursed flat on their backs, but ICU doctors now know that Covid-19 hypoxia improves best if patients are nursed flat on their tummies.  This simple but crucial difference was unknown early in the pandemic.

Recently, the Israelis have reported a chemical produced by white blood cells [alpha-defensin] as the cause of the micro-clots that clog the lungs and kidneys in Covid-19.  They found that a simple, common drug used to treat gout – colchicine – can counter alpha-defensin, though this intervention needs further confirmation.

In summary ... Covid-19 patients now have a better chance of surviving than those infected in the early, desperate months.  Furthermore, other useful treatment strategies may yet emerge as we frantically scramble for that elusive vaccine.

 Meanwhile, do not forget the three proven, simple precautions of infection control ... (1) wash hands, (2) wear masks, and (3) socially distance.  

John Agar MBBS, FRACP, FRCP[London], OAM
Conjoint Clinical Professor of Medicine [retired]